I've been in the computer industry for a long time now, and due to my job I pretty much require a powerful server to test various things on. So what better way to do that, than to make my very own, very fast home server with VMWare ESXi Hypervisor 
This server does actually a fair amount of work. With ESXi as the host system, I have several VM's which are all doing different things.
Windows 2008 R2 Server to store backups of user data and for general Windows server duties, mostly file sharing but it also runs my torrents in the background etc.
CENTOS Linux runs webserver for testing and web development.
FreeNAS for storage of Movies/TV Shows/Music that my entire home can access
FreeNAS yes another one, this one is mainly for testing purposes
Several variants of Windows including XP, 7, 8 these are all used as testbenches.
It also gives me the flexibility to quickly setup a test server of any operating system as proof of concept before rolling it out for a customer, etc.
Budget was semi-limited when first built but current specs are below...
ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi/AP
Intel Core2Quad Q6600
8GB DDR2-800 Memory (4x 2GB)
nVidia GeForce 8400GS
TP-Link Gigabit 10/100/1000 PCI Card
LSI SATA/SAS RAID Controller PCI-Express 4x
Broadcom 10/100/1000 PCI-Express 1x Card
Intel Dual PRO1000 10/100/1000 PCI Card
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 for testing VM's
2x 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue in a Mirror RAID (LSI Controller) for the Main 2008 R2 Server
2x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200's for storage of Movies
750GB Western Digital Caviar Green for TV shows/Music
All housed in an Antec P280
Please excuse the terrible phone pictures, but did not have my camera charged at the time, lol.
Now it's time to upgrade!
Due to building my new rig see log here. I'll have some spare parts which will go into the server and provide a huge upgrade over the old system.
ASUS P7P55D-E PRO LGA1156
Intel Core i5 760 @ 4.17 ghz
16gb (4x 4GB) DDR3 RAM (have not decided on what RAM yet, but probably just cheap 1300mhz stuff as ESXi wont benefit much from more expensive 1600mhz.
I will be changing the configuration of the drives as well.
500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue for testing VM's
2x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200's in a Mirror RAID (LSI Controller) for the Main 2008 R2 Server
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green for storage of Movies
750GB Western Digital Caviar Green for TV shows/Music
Will update with pics as they come!
This server does actually a fair amount of work. With ESXi as the host system, I have several VM's which are all doing different things.
Windows 2008 R2 Server to store backups of user data and for general Windows server duties, mostly file sharing but it also runs my torrents in the background etc.
CENTOS Linux runs webserver for testing and web development.
FreeNAS for storage of Movies/TV Shows/Music that my entire home can access
FreeNAS yes another one, this one is mainly for testing purposes
Several variants of Windows including XP, 7, 8 these are all used as testbenches.
It also gives me the flexibility to quickly setup a test server of any operating system as proof of concept before rolling it out for a customer, etc.
Budget was semi-limited when first built but current specs are below...
ASUS P5B-Deluxe WiFi/AP
Intel Core2Quad Q6600
8GB DDR2-800 Memory (4x 2GB)
nVidia GeForce 8400GS
TP-Link Gigabit 10/100/1000 PCI Card
LSI SATA/SAS RAID Controller PCI-Express 4x
Broadcom 10/100/1000 PCI-Express 1x Card
Intel Dual PRO1000 10/100/1000 PCI Card
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200 for testing VM's
2x 500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue in a Mirror RAID (LSI Controller) for the Main 2008 R2 Server
2x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200's for storage of Movies
750GB Western Digital Caviar Green for TV shows/Music
All housed in an Antec P280
Please excuse the terrible phone pictures, but did not have my camera charged at the time, lol.
Now it's time to upgrade!
Due to building my new rig see log here. I'll have some spare parts which will go into the server and provide a huge upgrade over the old system.
ASUS P7P55D-E PRO LGA1156
Intel Core i5 760 @ 4.17 ghz
16gb (4x 4GB) DDR3 RAM (have not decided on what RAM yet, but probably just cheap 1300mhz stuff as ESXi wont benefit much from more expensive 1600mhz.
I will be changing the configuration of the drives as well.
500GB Western Digital Caviar Blue for testing VM's
2x 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200's in a Mirror RAID (LSI Controller) for the Main 2008 R2 Server
2TB Western Digital Caviar Green for storage of Movies
750GB Western Digital Caviar Green for TV shows/Music
Will update with pics as they come!
2012 COMPY!
(16 items) |
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2012 COMPY!
(16 items) |
